"Every time they show another possible set up with their tool, we think: Here's another reason to back this" - GearNews.com

Poly Expressive is a foot controller that gives you more fluid, musical control than ever before. Do you want something that switches between 20 presets with clear labels? Easy. Want much more including X Y pads and pressure sensitive controls? It does that too, and it’s all easy to set up with our setup app. Simply print your board from the app and slide it into the sleeve. Expressive control of pedals from Chase Bliss, Eventide, Pigtronix, Strymon and more, amps from Kemper, Positive Grid, Peavey and Hughes & Kettner as well as software like Ableton and Bitwig, all without having to take you hands off the instrument. Poly is made out of polycarbonate (the same material as riot shields), and aluminium making it very tough and it uses top quality components like Switchcraft jacks. Poly Expressive lets you express more with your feet.

Our Inspiration

For a long time I wanted to control effects while playing guitar or bass but to do so I had to either take my hands of the instrument and turn knobs or control a single thing with an expression pedal. I wanted something better, so I created Poly Expressive. I often run my bass or guitar through Bitwig or Ableton as well as pedals, layering sounds and triggering clips and samples to augment my playing.

Responds to Position and Pressure

a board for controlling the Pigtronix Echolution 2, with multi dimensional control

Poly Expressive isn’t a 1 dimensional controller like an expression or wah pedal. Instead, it senses horizontal and vertical position and pressure at very high precision and low latency, giving you much more control with every movement.

You can also customise the curve / taper of each of control. Imagine that you want to control a filter but only half of the range of the control knob suits your style. It’s easy to setup to have just the section you want.

A big difference between Poly Expressive and a traditional controller is that you can make it have as many or as few controllers as you want. Poly fits both ledger and A3 paper so it’ll work anywhere in the world. Making and switching between boards is quick and easy.

Like X Y pads or pressure sensitive squares? Have heaps of them or just a few. Got big feet or pointy shoes? Change the sizes to suit you. Customise your board easily and print them out wherever you are.We test with lots of different shoes to make sure it'll work for everyone.

Pedals

Poly Expressive is great with pedals as they are our main focus. At launch we hope to have default controls and boards for every major pedal. Currently we test with pedals from Chase Bliss, Pigtronix, Positive Grid, Eventide, Elektron, Strymon and Line 6. It’s easy to power Poly Expressive as it takes standard centre pin negative 9V DC power and only needs 100ma.

If you want to use Poly Expressive with non-MIDI pedals that have an expression pedal input, like the Pigtronix Mothership 2 or the Strymon El Capistan add the MIDI to expression pedal converter to your pledge. The MIDI to expression pedal converter can be used without Poly Expressive as well, controlling 2 expression pedal capable pedals and is also an dual LFO generator and Bluetooth to 5 Pin MIDI converter.

Easy to Set Up

Setting up some pedals or amps with MIDI can require reading the possibly confusing manual to find CC numbers, and what they mean. Not any more! With Poly you can just select the pedals and their controllers will appear in the app. Instead of looking up that sending value 3 selects Fuzz, just select Fuzz from the drop down.

The setup app runs on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows and Linux.

Amps

Amps are great with MIDI control too. We test extensively with Hughes and Kettner, Kemper Profiler and Positive Grid products. We also support the Line 6 Helix, Axe FX and Peavey amps. Easily control any setting or change between presets.

DAWs / Software

Clip launching, live looping, parameter control, it’s all easy with Poly Expressive. Do you want something like a clip launcher for your feet? Just print out that board. Poly Expressive is great with Bitwig Studio, Ableton Live and other DAWs. You can connect up to your DAW with Bluetooth MIDI or traditional wired connections. If you’re running Bias FX / Amp on your iPad, tablet or laptop you can easily control it with Poly Expressive.

Other Features

You can send MIDI clock and daisy chain multiple Poly wirelessly, so you can use multiple Poly in a single setup without needing cables between them.

If you want to be able to control your rig from multiple places on a big stage without running cables Poly Expressive can do that.

Feature Summary

Detects position and pressure

Can send 3 dimensions at once per area, multiple MIDI messages can be mapped to each dimension.

No hard limit on how many messages per area.

As many regions as you want, in any colour.

Made from amazingly tough hard coated polycarbonate and aluminium composite.

Can control pedals that only have an expression or tap input with the MIDI to expression converter.

Poly Expressive is built by us here in Melbourne, Australia using premium Switchcraft connectors and other top quality parts. Our pressure sensors are very responsive and are rated for over a million presses.

Poly Expressive is an intuitive, reliable and inspiring foot controller and we need your support to
revolutionise foot control.

Timeline:

Production time lines are short because we already have components, jigs / fixtures and assembly area set up for the first units. So far we have built the initial run of circuit boards, have the poly carbonate and aluminium composite cut. To still do is drilling the required holes, gluing the internals, flashing the chips, assembling all orders and packing. There is no additional R&D to go, all parts have been selected and initial quantities have been purchased. The config app will improve over time but already works on the target platforms. The major issue that might come up is delivery to destinations that we are unfamiliar with shipping to.

Risks and challenges

We’ve got good relationships with our suppliers and the parts we use have quite short lead times. We’re a multi-award nominated maker so we’re confident in our ability to produce a quality product.

We have ensured that the critical components we use for Poly Expressive are available from multiple distributors so we have reliable and fast access to supplies.

We have built up a collection of test harnesses and production jigs and templates to both maximise manufacturing efficiency and make sure every unit is fully tested.

Making sure the setup app works on the multitude of Android devices and different OS version of iOS, Windows, Linux and Mac is a challenge but the libraries we use to build the setup app are well tested and supported on many platforms.

Adding presets for every major MIDI controlled pedal is our goal and we already have many of them covered but all of them might not be available at launch, if we can’t borrow all the pedals in time.

If you have something specific you'd like us to test with, just let us know.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $99 or more
About $99

MIDI to Expression Pedal converter

Converts MIDI to 2 expression pedal style outputs. Has Bluetooth, WiFi and multiple LFOs. Can be used with or without Poly Expressive. If you want to add it to your Poly order, add $90 to your pledge. Early Bird.